Ladykillers - Music From Those Glorious Ealing Films, The

A lovingly assembled collection of film themes from the successful Ealing Studios. The movie soundtracks featured in the collection are all from the decade following World War II. This was a period of stellar achievement in British moviemaking. Of the works included here, only The Man in the Sky was released following the sale of Ealing to the BBC in 1955. Movies such as The Ladykillers, The Man in the White Suit, Passport to Pimlico, together with nine others, are represented with at least one piece from each movie. The 18 tracks also include many compositions reconstructed by ear and sometimes created anew where the scores were no longer in existence, all played with aplomb by the Royal Ballet Symphonia. Stalwart British stars such as Alec Guinness, Margaret Rutherford, Stanley Holloway, and Dennis Price graced the screen in these curiously British films. Whimsical, serious, and brooding, yet all the time human and on the verge of merriment, the scores were perfect musical reflections of the on-screen shenanigans. The Ladykillers also highlights some of the more interesting composers of the period. The music of Georges Auric, born in 1899, serves to highlight the wide-eyed nostalgia evoked by these films and their attendant music. A former child prodigy and member of Les Six, the group of French composers who advocated clear melodies and eschewed impressionism, his work on this album drawn from Passport to Pimlico, The Titfield Thunderbolt, and The Lavender Hill Mob stands proudly beside his other achievements on such movies as Roman Holiday, Caesar and Cleopatra, and Jean Cocteau's Blood of a Poet, which was his debut. His love theme from Moulin Rouge was covered by Willie Nelson and Andy Williams. As bookends, The Man in the White Suit is stirring and whirling, a flurry of bold brass and woodwind, a cacophony representing the textile works north of the border in Scotland. John Ireland's only film score, for the Australian outback cowboy epic The Overlanders, brings the recording to a resounding "The End," with his vibrant toccata. All in all, a fantastic souvenir of a unique creative period, the tasty snippets on display here serve to whet the appetite and prompt the search for more. The set comes complete with a 16-page booklet with synopses of the movies in addition to a cast list and reproductions of the Ealing marquee posters. ~ Michael M. Murphy|